Review of “Reality of the Algerian Nation” by M. Egretaud

The author of this book is a member of the PCF and the Union Française, in other words, he is the PCF’s specialist on colonial questions.

In this volume, as in others written by Stalinists on similar subjects, for examples M. Ayache’s “Morocco,” the part of the book that presents a balance sheet of colonialism is well documented sand constitutes an implacable indictment of colonialism.

But the book sins on two or three essential points. In the first case, at no point does it show that the fight for national independence is only the immediate aspect of the revolution occurring in that country, as in all colonial countries, a revolution that is an integral part of the world socialist revolution.

Next, it presents a distorted image of the revolutionary movement in Algeria with the aim of inflating the role of the Algerian Communist Party.

Finally, the book presents the PCF’s policy concerning the Algerian question in a way that can only be qualified as a tissue of lies. Its omission of the PCF’s policy at the time of the events in the Constantinois in 1945 is a typical product of the Stalinist school. The same goes for the omission of Thorez’s pages on the “nation in formation” written when fighting had already begun. Finally, there is the omission of the vote in favor of “special powers.” In the preface to this book Billoux announces a book “more documented, more exhaustive” than this one. We can bet that the truth will be no better treated on the points we have raised.